As we look forward to Thanksgiving (and I already am), don't be too intimidated by the Marthas of the world. This short piece in the New York Times ends with an admission by a foodie mag editor that those too-perfect-to-be-true birds are, in fact, too perfect to be true.

"I know it seems like, hey, what could be simpler than roasting a bird? But the perfect roast bird is a challenge," Ms. Cowin said. "Turkey, as a model, is very much like a fashion magazine with fashion models. There are plump turkeys, and, I'm not kidding you, there's skinny turkeys, there are chesty turkeys, breasty turkeys, there are flat-chested turkeys." With one previous year's model, "I was like, 'I just need the breast to get a little bit higher,' " she said, then paused."We have enhanced the breasts of turkeys," she admitted.

I assume this means Photoshop enhancement, but the article doesn't say. She could easily be talking about more physical alterations. Back in the late 80s and early 90s, I was a subscriber to Zillions, Consumer Reports' defunct magazine for kids, which I still mourn. (And not just nostalgically. We need more publications dedicated to introducing children to critical thinking, skepticism and the reality behind the advertainment that's targeted at them.) Zillions introduced 9-year-old me to advertising photo tricks like "ice cream" that's actually lard or vegetable shortening and fast-food hamburgers made to stand tall and proud with the help of cardboard inserts. I wish the Grey Lady had gone more into specifics like that here.

The New York Times "Coming Model of the Month: A Fuller Thanksgiving Turkey", via Barfblog.

Permalink for this edition. Web Zen is created and curated by Frank Davis, and re-posted here on Boing Boing with his kind permission. Web Zen Home and Archives, Store, Twitter.

[photo: iphone snap of delicious fruits I bought at the local farmer's market yesterday. - XJ]

Dead Tauntaun Wedding Cake! (Thanks, Bonnie!)

Flickr user Megpi made this beautiful "impressionist cake." ZOMG.

impressionist cake (via Craft)

Photo by Josh Kucera, at True Slant: On the frontiers of commerce: Chinese watermelon sausage. And with that, I am stepping aside from the blog for a nutritious rainy-afternoon lunch, which will not contain anything resembling what's in this photo. (Thanks, Noah Shachtman)

Flick user and master retrogame cupcake maker Ana Fuji has a gorgeous set of delicious-looking Super Mario sweets online, made from chocolate and fondant.

trufinhas: super mario!

(via Geekologie)

According to this post on science fiction blog io9, the network I still spell out in my mind as "SciFi" -- recently rebranded as "SyFy" -- may be considering cooking shows for future programming. I don't know why they're bothering -- the fan-created show Klingon Food Kritik, above, pretty much pwned the genre. Anyway, snip from io9 post:

We heard from a source who's had meetings with Syfy execs recently, in which they said they were trying to get away from the "genre stereotype" of science fiction. And rather than being interested in developing new science fiction programs, the execs allegedly said they were looking at developing a cooking show and a talk show for the newly renamed network

SyFy does have reality shows, which include Ghost Hunters and its kin. But no one would argue that Ghost Hunters still falls under the science-fiction umbrella. And I would rather watch hours of Mansquito and Boa vs. Python than a minute of a show where some goon dresses up as a Vulcan and teaches me how to toss a Romulan Salad (snicker).

I found the Klingon cookin' video in this funny post about science fiction and food at seriouseats.com. (thanks, Todd Lappin)

Fold the plastic wrap over the slice of dough and roll it out until it is a little larger than your gyoza press.

Peel the plastic wrap off of one half of the circle of dough. Lay the thin dough over the press and gently push it into the center to make a depression for the ice cream.

Put a small spoonful of ice cream into the depression.

Now that is love.

Where the Wild Things Are cupcakes (via Neatorama)

Rolling Cookie Cutter (via Neatorama)

*I know. But millions of people call them "Legos." Usage trumps formal correctness every time.

Brain Food

Pictured (at left) are three sushi nigiri—hand squeezed rectangles of rice topped with a slice of fish. The first was made by the veteran chef. It was small and light, weighing in at only 12 grams, and the MRI scan revealed a lot of empty space inside it, between the grains of rice. It also revealed another secret of a veteran chef's skill—the grains of rice were mostly aligned lengthwise, which helps the nigiri hold together without being too dense, by creating adhesion along the edges of the aligned grains.

The second nigiri was made by the apprentice. It was denser—about the same size, but weighing 15 grams. And the rice grains were less uniform in their orientation.

The third nigiri was made by the robot, which couldn't come close to matching human skill. The grains of rice were hopelessly jumbled and the sushi was thick and heavy, clocking in at 20 grams. Naruse ate some of it and described it as "sticky." This is closer to the typical sushi that, sadly, we're content to eat in the States.

It took about 2 1/2 hours for the cookies to bake completely. I ended up opening the car door shortly before the end of the baking period to check for doneness. This check has to be done manually, as there are no color indicators (such as brownness) to judge by because the sugar in the car cookies does not caramelize and brown like that of oven-baked cookies. So, I gently pressed the edges of the cookies to feel that they were firm and even more gently touched the center of one of the cookies to see that it held together and was not gooey (the center of the cookie should not be entirely firm, unless you are shooting for a crispy cookie). Finally, I slid one of the cookies around on the parchment paper - a good test for this type of baking because a baked cookie will release easily from the paper, while an unbaked cookie will stick in place. If your cookies are not done, add more baking time in 15 or 30 minute increments, as opposed to the 30 second or 1 minute increments you might add to an oven-baked cookie.

Think outside the tortilla. Carefully unwrap the Burrito Supremes and soft taco, and extract their stuffings in a bowl. Carefully rinse off each of the tortillas, and then briefly steam them in a steamer to soften and moisten them. Then lay each tortilla on a cutting board and cut circles in it using a small circular cookie cutter, or simply an empty tin can measuring around 2 1/2" in diameter. Take the filling and put a small amount in each small tortilla circle, then fold it in half and pinch it into a tortellini shape. The moisture should keep it sticky enough to stay put. Pile the tortellinis on a plate. Next, cut open and pour the contents of the sauce packets in a measuring cup, then generously drizzle the sauce over the tortellini. Garnish with parsley and serve with Sierra Mist in a wine glass.

Threadcakes Gallery! :: Threadcakes: A Threadless Cake

The operator asked for my serial number, asked me to describe the problem, then asked if I could be at some address the next day to receive my replacement unit and ship back the defective one. I gave her my office address, and yesterday at around 2PM, a DHL guy showed up with a brand new espresso machine in its package. I lifted it out, replaced it with the defective one, watched as the DHL guy slapped a return sticker on it, and then he left, leaving me a shiny new coffee machine that I brought home in a cab (two people on the street and the cabbie all stopped me and asked me about this beautiful coffee machine and whether it worked as good as it looked and where they could get one of their own). This morning, I enjoyed a perfect cappuccino with breakfast, and ruminated on just how damned good the customer service from Kitchen Aid had been, and I figured, man, that deserves some public approbation.

Update: Canadians beware! Multiple commenters to this post have weighed in to describe nightmarish treatment from the Canadian Kitchen Aid service department, who seem well and truly awful. My experience recounted above was with Kitchen Aid UK.

The initiative is being seen as an attempt by the saffron party, which popularised the 'vada pav', staple diet of many a Mumbaikar, four decades ago, to establish rapport with the 'Marathi manoos', whose tilt in favour of Sena offshoot MNS, cost the party dearly in recent Lok Sabha polls.

"In foreign countries, burger is available 24-hours. Why can't vada pav be also available similarly," Uddhav said. The party, which has started a cooperative to encourage Marathi entrepreneurs, showcases 'Shiv Vada' as its first project under the new initiative, sources said. "To begin with, 25 Shiv Vada stalls would be operational in the city," they said.

(Image: Jumbo Vada Pav.jpg, CC-BY, Wikimedia Commons)

In Brooklyn, about a mile south of us (via Making Light)

Teasmade (via Making Light)

Wedding Cake (Thanks, Jay!)

Beanzawave: The World's Smallest Microwave (Thanks, Fipi Lele!)

d20 groom's cake (Thanks, Jason!)

Crawling Zombie Torso Gelatin Mold (Thanks, Alice!)

Katamari Cakes (Thanks, Lissette

You're going to pre-heat to 500F. But how do you know when the stone is ready? You could give it maybe 30 minutes and hope for the best. Or, splurge a little. A $45 infrared digital thermometer is not only a fun toy, it's the perfect way to assess surface temp from a safe distance.

Open the oven and quickly shine the beam onto the stone every 15 minutes. Any more often than that will a) let more heat escape, and b) lower your spirits. Compared to when I pre-heated the pizza stone all by its lonesome, getting the stone up to 470F when surrounded by the brick house took 30 minutes longer. Makes sense, you've just added twice as much ceramic or terra cotta to the mix.

Discuss this on Boing Boing Gadgets

Ms. Pacman cupcakes from Trophy cupcakes (via Wonderland!)

MAR10 cookies (Thanks, Tessie!)

Swoon! Now that's sugary sweet geek-lovin'!

Cookies for my love (Thanks, Beth!)

Bento Tuesday (Thanks, BingoTheChimp!)

These delightful gentlemen have attained the holy grail of sloppy-chef cooking: Saturday Night Live's Taco Town Taco: a taco in a taco in a gordita in a pizza in a blueberry pancake in batter, deep fried. Yes, you can buy these at every kebab shop in Glasgow, but it's a very good effort for Americans.

Pizza? Now that's what I call a taco! (Thanks, Fipi Lele!)

Oh, sure, but what if you're not an Episcopalian? What about Mormons, Baptists, Catholics and Scientologists? Where's their salt?

Christian salt seller hopes to shake up market

If I thought anyone would attempt this (and they shouldn't) I'd offer the following warnings:
Ensure the metal parts are earthed (I did)
Do not place it on heat-sensitive surfaces.
Do not place heat-sensitive materials on top of it.
Take care not to touch any hot surfaces.
Do not leave the machine unattended.

The Art of Oatmeal (Thanks, Leopold Bloom!)

Update: in the comments, Rob from theHumm sez, "My father-in-law does these for my mother-in-law every morning. A few years ago we put together this poster as a birthday present for him and as a fundraiser for the local food bank. All credit goes to my wife for the great headline text."

Steampunk Cake! (Thanks, Jake!)

foodies (Thanks, Fipi Lele!)

Kristin's Hello Kitty Birthday Cake

The food is served in flasks and operating-room’s dishes and isn’t that cheap (7 and more lats per meal), but this is a bizarre experience that is worth breaking the bank. Besides, the place is owned by local doctors, but unfortunately, the president of Latvia, who is also a doctor, declined his appearance at the opening once he realized how weird this place actually is.

Super-barista and frequent Boing Boing video personality Kyle Glanville shares news of interest to all java devotees: the first-ever Specialty Coffee Association Barista Competition takes place this weekend in Los Angeles, January 23rd to 25th, in the beautiful Spring Arts Tower Building in Downtown LA. Above, a video about the competition. If you go to this event, here is my advice: do not walk up to these guys and ask them to make you a Venti half-caf goatmilk frappucino with extra foam and sugarfree caramel syrup, because you're likely to get barista-slapped.

Link to previous Boing Boing blog posts and videos featuring Kyle, and Link to previous coffee-related blog posts and videos here.

Casu marzu is considered toxic when the maggots in the cheese have died. Because of this, only cheese in which the maggots are still alive is eaten. When the cheese has fermented enough, it is cut into thin strips and spread on moistened Sardinian flatbread (pane carasau), to be served with a strong red wine.[6][7] Casu marzu is believed to be an aphrodisiac by local Sardinians.[1] Because the larvae in the cheese can launch themselves for distances up to 15 centimetres (6 in) when disturbed,[5][8] diners hold their hands above the sandwich to prevent the maggots from leaping into their eyes.[3] Those who do not wish to eat live maggots place the cheese in a sealed paper bag. The maggots, starved for oxygen, writhe and jump in the bag, creating a "pitter-patter" sound. When the sounds subside, the maggots are dead and the cheese can be eaten.[9]

(Image: Snob food.jpg, a Creative Commons Attribution ShareAlike photo in the Wikimedia Commons, uploaded by Shardan)

SUNNY SIDE UP (via Geisha Asobi)

Julian Kreusser is an adorable foodie five-year-old with his own cooking show, "The Big Kitchen With Food" on Portland cable access TV. He cooks others' recipes and his own ("Yummy Yummy Citrus Boy") and he's absolutely fabulous. BrooklynTwang sez, "his story is full of win - there is the coolness of a 5 year old boy who loves cooking, the refreshingness of a cooking show with an awkward host, and what appears to be some very cool free range parenting, encouraging the kids enthusiasm for something and letting him use food processors, stoves, etc. to follow his muse. I just watched an episode and it was rad. It even included a plug from Julian to buy your food locally because its better for you!"

Five-Year-Old Chef Gets His Own Show, (Thanks, BrooklynTwang

Another installment in our "faves from 2008" BoingBoing tv retrospective -- this two-parter in which Mark Frauenfelder gets an exclusive tour of Intelligentsia Coffee & Tea. Above, part one, below, part two, and MP4 links for download here:

* A Morning at Intelligentsia Part 1
* A Morning at Intelligentsia Coffee Part 2

Snip from the original post:

Intelligentsia Coffee & Tea is based out of Chicago, Illinois and has recently opened up a new store in the Silverlake neighborhood of Los Angeles. Kyle Glanville, head of research and development at Intelligentsia and winner of the 2008 US Barista Championship shows Mark how they acquire and roast some of the finest coffee in the world.

The word intelligentsia derives from the Latin word intelligentia, meaning a group of people engaged in complex mental and creative labor directed to the development and dissemination of culture. Kyle Glanville has been laboring to promulgate a new coffee culture with Intelligentsia to combat the "get up and go" mentality, and Mark is along for the ride to learn the careful art of roasting coffee.

Intelligentsia is located at 3922 West Sunset Boulevard, Los Angeles, California 90029 and is open 7 days a week.

Machine Project, a wonderful little alt/tech gallery and event space in Los Angeles where we've shot many a Boing Boing tv episode, is hosting another one of their annual holiday season Fry-B-Ques.

Last year, BBtv attended, and we shot the episode above. You're not actually supposed to fry gadgets, and now that a year has passed, fine, I can reveal that we did not really fry a cellphone. It's all Final Cut magic. Fake. Fakefakefake. You cannot fry cellphones, or gadgets, or bailed-out automobile manufacturers, or credit default swaps, or anything non-edible at the Fry-B-Que. There, that's over with. I feel so much better.

Now, then. If you go, here is my advice: do not eat anything for like 48 hours beforehand. Here's the blurb from Machine Project:

Fry-B-Q is here! Please join us on Sunday, December 14th at 8pm. This year there's a new twist — Pie-B-Q! Head to Machine for the fried food extravaganza and live music by Emily Lacy & friends, and then go next door to our neighbors the Echo Park Film Center for screenings of new videos from the Machine Project Field Guide to LACMA, rare Machine home videos and pies. Pies! Starts at 8pm. Admission to the event is free, pay $5 for all you can fry privileges, and $5 for all you can pie privileges. Things to do:

1) Arrive between 8 - 11 pm Sunday Dec 14th.

2) Bring something edible to fry. Our trained fryolater technicians will be standing by, eager to batter and fatify your soon to be delicious snacks. Our extensive testing suggests that almost any item will bring great fried satisfaction - potatoes, fish, vegetables, onions, twinkies, etc. Just in case we bought extra fire extinguishers.

3) prepare for eating pie.

4) Bring cash or checks (or credit cards) small and large and become a friend of Machine Project. We need your help to keep doing what we do, and your membership fee is fully tax deductible. Details on our support page.

And here’s the good news: Although the Domino's dough looks horrid compared to the corner pizza’s store (dense and flat and a weird color), for thin-crust pizzas made in this cast-iron-and-broiler fashion, Domino's is actually ... really good. In a four-person blind-taste test, the favorite between Domino's and our corner pizzeria was split right down the middle. Honest. People couldn’t tell the difference. And the Domino's dough, probably due to some mysterious ingredients, was very, very easy to stretch into a pie. This cooking technique took dough from one of the worst pizzas available and made it taste good. The fact that Domino's foists doughy, disgusting pizzas on the public when it could easily do otherwise is almost a crime.

Nursery Rhyme Cupcakes (Thanks, Amelia!)

This is one of the Ur-dreams of librarianship, what Brewster Kahle of the Internet Archive calls "universal access to all human knowledge." Today's Internet was shaped by people who share the dream. It's a beautiful one.

Each volume so reduced in size is housed in a sealed cartridge not much larger than a 12-gauge shotgun shell. When desired for reading, it is inserted in a small cabinet, the light turned on, and the copy is projected upon a screen, enlarged to comfortable reading size and unaccompanied by glare...

One of the greatest advantages of film books is that small schools and libraries with limited space and money can afford to have all the material which is now available only in the large cities. Files of perishable newspapers can be photographed and thus preserved indefinitely. The cost of making film books will be much below that of printing regular books and their small size also eliminates the storage problem.

Boing Boing buddy Danielle Spencer points us to the winners of the "Turkey-shaped Jell-O® Mold: 2008 Competition," which we've posted here on Boing Boing for several years. My favorite is the S'Mores Turkey, above, because I can imagine myself eating it and rather enjoying it. Danielle's lofty writeups make the list even more fun. Behold, her appreciation of "Bubby's Matzoh Turkey."

In this stunning mis-en-matzoh-ball-soup, we are brought back to the original site of sustenance: the womb. Floating, trussed, lulled in a warm bath of chicken broth, we experience the original state of undifferentiated oneness, of satiety. Grand Prize Winner [by popular election] for "Best Overall Turkey" By Satya K. & Frank H.